The five-year project of training and research outlined in this application will enable a junior scholar to meet the near-term career development goal of develop demographic and spatial methods and measures to improve geographic and demographic explanations of rural-rural migration and deforestation in the humid tropics, and the long-term career goal of developing more coherent models of migration and land cover change, especially in Latin America. With the proposed directed study, the candidate will be poised to make significant contributions to the interdisciplinary study of population-environment interactions. The career development plan sets three training goals: (1) To develop skills in combining large quantitative migration survey design and analysis with qualitative design and analysis; (2) To develop expertise in spatial applications of demographic and geographical methods and measures regarding migration and demographic and other factors related to environmental change; and (3) To develop conceptual development, presentation and grant writing skills, and training in research ethics. These three goals will be met with the following development activities: course work, mentoring from sponsors, directed study and consultation with expert advisors, conference participation, and a research plan that builds cumulatively on the knowledge and skills gained through career development activities. The research plan has three aims: 1) Examine the relation between demographic and other factors at the household and municipio level on forest conversion in Peten's (Guatemala) agricultural frontiers; 2) Investigate demographic and other factors associated with the primary underlying demographic force behind forest conversion: rural-rural migration; and. 3) Integrate qualitative methods with multi-level and spatial statistical techniques with a Geographic Information System (GIS) framework to address shortcomings in current methods used to investigate the determinants of frontier forest conversion and rural-rural migration in the Latin American tropics.